My Favorite All Butter Pie Crust {step by step photo tutorial}

This All Butter Pie Crust is my absolute favorite pie crust recipe. It works EVERY time and produces flaky, buttery homemade pie crust that will make your pie recipe perfect!

I kind of can’t believe that my blog is called Crazy for Crust and I do not have one dedicated pie crust post. I mean, I make lots of crusts, and lots of pie, but until now, I’ve never done a pie crust tutorial. It’s time to change that!

I’ve been using this all-butter pie crust recipe for about 5 years now, and it is my absolute favorite one.

Now, let me tell you a secret: you don’t always have to use a made-from-scratch pie crust. You are perfectly welcome to bring Pumpkin Pie to your mother’s house for Thanksgiving using a refrigerated crust (Pillsbury is my favorite). In fact, I’ve done that myself. But sometimes you want homemade pie crust, so I think everyone should be able to make a pie crust from scratch. I know so many people are scared of the dreaded pie crust – but there really isn’t anything scary about it. It’s easier than you think. Making your own will taste great – I promise. Even if it’s not the prettiest thing in the world, it’s going to taste better than store bought. And I’ll tell you a secret: half the time my crust isn’t the prettiest. And you know what? I don’t care. It tastes great just the same.

Now, to make a good pie crust you need a few things: fat, water, flour, and salt. You can use a few different kinds of fats for pie crust, the most popular being butter, shortening (Crisco), or lard. I’m going to go against the grain and tell you, my crust is all butter. I don’t like lard, and I don’t like Crisco. I’ve got nothing against either of those products, (in fact, I use Crisco occasionally) but I don’t like them in my pie crust.

I love butter so I make all butter pie crust. And guess what? I’m bucking tradition even more – I use SALTED butter. I always use salted butter in my cooking…that’s just me. You can totally do this with unsalted butter, but add 1/4 teaspoon more salt.

Okay, are you ready for my step-by-step all butter pie crust tutorial?

This post is very photo heavy, but you’re going to see the crust every step of the way. Let’s get started!

(If you want to skip all the photos and just get the recipe, click here to jump to the recipe.)

When you start making an all butter pie crust, you need to think ahead a little. Everything needs to be COLD. Cold butter and ice water are the keys to a successful crust. Before you start, dice your butter and then put it back in the refrigerator. Then fill a measuring cup with ice and water.

Pulse a couple of times. If you’re using a pastry cutter, now is the time to hope you’re been working your arms. Put some muscle into it!

This is what it will look like:

Add your ICE water. Not the ice, just the cold water. Start with 2 tablespoons.

Pulse a few times, let it run a few seconds. I always add a third tablespoon of water at that point, always. But, depending on altitude and humidity and your kitchen and the star alignment, you might not need the third…or you may need a fourth. Run the processor and your mixture should go from this:

To this:

If it’s not coming together add more water, but wait to see if it comes together. You do not want a wet dough. It takes a few seconds for it to turn into the ball.

At this point, I do something unconventional: I don’t chill it yet. *gasp*

I hate rolling chilled dough. Like, I’d rather eat beets. So instead, I roll out my dough, put it in my pie plate, THEN chill it while I make my filling. This dough is sturdy enough to roll right away, and if it’s rolled out, it chills faster. Win-win, in my book.

(FYI, I do the same thing when I make sugar cookies!)

Okay, so now you have a ball of all butter pie crust dough.

Turn it out onto a cutting board or a silicone baking mat (like a roul’pat or a silpat) that’s been dusted with flour. FYI, if you’re using a cutting board or marble slab, you’ll need more flour. Silicone is better if you have it – less sticking with minimal flour, which is your goal. The more flour you add, the tougher your crust is going to be.

Press it into a disk with your hands, flour your rolling pin and roll it out into a circle.

Keep rolling…

I like to pick mine up and flip it over and around every few rolls until it gets too big to do that. This is important because that way you know it’s not sticking to your surface. There is nothing worse than rolling out the perfect dough and have it crack and break when you go to pick it up.

Roll it until it’s about 1/4″ thick. Or, well, this thickness:

In the 3 times I made crust last week I could not find a ruler. #damnkids

The easiest way to transfer your all butter pie crust to your pie plate is to roll it up on the rolling pin. If you’ve moved your crust around a bit, it should roll up no problem.

Note: you have to hold your rolling pin with a finger so it doesn’t unroll. Just a word of advice. Otherwise you’ll have a pile of unrolled crust. Not that I’d know or anything…

Put it in your pie plate. Press it to fit, gently. This crust fits best in a 9″ pie plate. Beware: not all pie plates are the same size. Some are 9 1/2″, some are 10″, some are 7″. Be sure what size you have before you start. If I’m using a 10″ pie plate I double the recipe and use 2/3 of the dough.

I like to lay the overhang flat around the pie rim, then fold it under if possible. It won’t be overhung that much around the whole pie plate. Some will be flat, some will have enough to fold under.

On the left I had enough to fold over, there in the center, not so much. That’s okay!

Now you decide how you want your edges. Crimped? Forked? (I’m sure there’s an official word for “forked” but whatever, I like making up my own vocabulary.)

BTW, that was a fun shot to get. {Look ma, no hands on the camera!}

This is what your crimped pie looks like:

Or make it pretty with a fork:

And it will look like this when you’re done:

Another way I like to dress up my pie edge is to make a second all butter pie crust and use small cookie cutters to cut shapes and put them around the edges.

Stars, maple leaves, Santa stockings, whatever. Last year, I used the back of an icing tip to make round circles using this method:

Also note: I only ever fill this pie crust and bake. I’ve never blind baked it for a custard filling.

Then all you have to do is fill your pie and bake it! Here’s a tip so your pie crust isn’t too brown after baking (I hate a dark crust!): Tear off strips of foil that are about 1 1/2″ thick. (No need to measure, just guesstimate.) Tear those in half and wrap them around the pie, like this:

{That Toffee Chocolate Pecan Pie recipe is coming Friday!}

Then bake the pie, as directed. About 10-15 minutes before the pie will be done, remove the foil. So many recipes say to add the foil if the pie is getting too brown, but how are you supposed to do that without burning your fingers? (Um, you can’t. That’s a fact.) Make a preemptive strike – cover first, then remove so the edges can brown to a normal color.

And hey, all you crust haters who eat the filling and throw away the crust: this will make you like it, I bet. You probably hate it because it’s brittle and burned…if you follow that tip, it won’t be! 🙂

Ingredients:

Directions:

Make sure your butter is diced and cold before starting. Make sure you’re using ice water also.

Combine flour and salt in food processor. Pulse once to mix. Alternately, whisk in a large bowl if you are not using a food processor.

Add butter and process until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add 2 tablespoons of water and pulse, a few times. I always add a third tablespoon of water and pulse until the dough forms a ball. This takes a few seconds. If you find your mixture is too dry, you can add another tablespoon of water. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface.

Alternately, without a food processor, cut your butter in using a pastry cutter. Work in one tablespoon of butter at a time, then turn out the dough onto a floured surface.

I recommend using a silpat or roul’pat or other similar silicone surface for rolling. But you don’t have to, you’ll just have to use more flour. Press the dough ball into a disk and roll to about 1/4″ thickness. Be sure to flip and rotate your dough as you go so it does not stick to your surface. Roll out the dough to a few inches larger than your pie plate (about 12″ for a 9″ pie plate).

Place in pie plate and press to fit. Tuck under any overhang and crimp or use the tines of a fork to decorate the edges. Chill until ready to fill.

This pie crust is great for filling and the recipe makes 1 crust that fits comfortably in a 9″ pie plate. For a bigger pie plate or for a double crust, double the recipe.

To use this crust as a pre-baked crust, bake at 400°F for about 8-10 minutes, or until cooked through. Be sure to poke it several times with the tines of a fork all over the bottom before baking, or use pie weights.

If you are using unsalted butter, increase salt to 1/2 teaspoon.

If you double the recipe for a 2 crust pie: start with 3 tablespoons of water and add more as needed. The rest of the items can be doubled exactly.

I’ve been a Pillsbury pre-made pie crust girl for… well, forever. Until I tried the Pioneer Woman’s recipe that used shortening. Then, my dough worked. HOWEVER, now that you’ve laid out the process so easily for us here using BUTTER… I’m going to give your technique a try. Which, also means I need to buy a new food processor. I’ve broken the last 3 I’ve owned. But hey – a baker needs her tools, right? HAHA 😉

Awesome, awesome, awesome Dorothy! I do a butter/shortening blend, but I’m moving towards all butter (my grandma’s perfect crust is all shortening, but I miss the butter flavor too much not to include it!) Yours looks so perfect, there is definitely something to this all-butter game. Good thing the holidays will give me plenty of time to experiment 😉

Such a pretty post 🙂 I’m a salted butter girl, too. And, last time I made a chicken pot pie I tried to add the foil at the end and def burned my fingers. Then had a rant about how that was a really stupid idea.

I’m so happy that this recipe uses all butter, because the idea of using shortening just sounds gross to me. Like, what actually is shortening? I use salted butter too… I’ve tried using unsalted for baking and buying salted just for eating, but honestly I don’t really notice a difference at all between salted and unsalted. So I stick with salted.

Dorothy, your steps are very thorough, and would prevent even a novice from making a mistake. I wish I had these printed instructions to hand out when I once taught eight 9-year olds how to bake pie at a friend’s daughter’s birthday party. My mom was a great pie baker, and passed her skills along to me and all my sisters, and we always used just salted butter for the shortening. Then we would use the leftover dough to make “cookies” by sprinkling them with sugar and cinnamon before baking. Yum!

Love that it can be made with a food processor too…. just in time for pie season (Thanksgiving/Christmas) 🙂 Love short cuts in the kitchen that don’t involved processed food! As always great work on your blog!!! 😀

I’ve been using the food processor and butter for many years, but always chilled the dough before rolling, which we both know is a major pain. Hubby is going to a guys night in tonight, and I was asked to make two pecan pies, so I tried your method, including rolling them out on a silicone mat, (a first time for that, too). It was life changing! I kid you not; I was able to roll the dough out so evenly, that there were no scraps to trim off of the edges. That creates a wee bit of a problem, because, I’ve always made cinnamon sugar pinwheels with the pie dough scraps. Somehow, we’ll live without them, because I’m never going back to chilling before rolling!
Thanks, Dorothy, for teaching this old baker two new tricks.

I know, the no scraps is a problem, lol! Now you just need to double the recipe to make everyone happy, ha! Thank you so much for letting me know the method worked! It’s so nice to hear the successes. 🙂

We typically always go with Pillsbury. BUT, this year my mom decided at 7:30 pm on Thanksgiving Eve that she wanted me to make a pie crust from scratch for her pumpkin pies. I just stared at her for a minute. Then I grabbed my computer and looked up this tutorial. Thank you Dorothy- my pie crusts were not as pretty as yours, but they tasted great and you’re right- this is fairly easy recipe 🙂

I used this as a bake-and-fill crust….. not sure what that that’s technically called, haha. I baked it at 475 for about 12-15 minutes I think, and it was amazing. I filled it with coconut banana cream pie 🙂

I know this was posted over a year ago, but I’m sooooo glad I found an easy all butter crust recipe! I feel like every one I’ve checked out has shortening (which is almost never found in my kitchen) or has very specific directions that if not followed will result in a failed crust! This year I am planning on finally making an apple pie, but I wasn’t sure what crust to use. I’ll definitely have to give this one a go!!

I hope im not too late to comment on this! But hello hello. Your pie shell looks amazing and the recipe is so easy! I hail from the humid sauna of Singapore, and while I love a good pie or tart, I can’t seem to get a good consistency of pastry. It looks so easy to roll up onto your rolling pin but mine will stick everywhere! I can’t even pick it up off the table because the pastry won’t retain its shape. Do you have any tips on how to deal with pastry, or could it be the temperature which i’m chilling the dough, which is currently at 1 degree celsuis in the fridge? Thanks for the great recipe!

You possibly need more flour to make it less wet (if you’re noticing that the dough is very wet, add 1-2 tablespoons of flour at a time until you can work with it). Quite possibly the humidity and temperature is messing with you as well, make sure the dough is very chilled before you roll it out, instead of doing as I’ve shown and rolling it warm!

Thanks so much for the tips! Will definitely try it out next time I make pastry. Though when I try to chill the dough it becomes a brick when i take it out of the fridge, I think setting the fridge at 1 degree Celsius was a bad idea haha!

Thank you so much for a wonderful post. I love to cook but am new to baking. I made my first quiche last night for Boss’s day today. It was a hit so I decided to try some more. I did use a store bought dough and wanted to try my own. I also purchased two 9.5 inch pie pyrex plates. Sine I will like be making all my pies in them, I assume I could simply increase the amounts by equal proportions and get enough for the larger plate. My thought was to increase it by 25% so that would be 5 oz of butter instead of 4 oz, 12.5 oz of flour instead of 10 oz and salt should be 3/8 teaspoon instead of 1/4 teaspoon. Water would still increase slowly.

Does this sound correct?

By the way, I am so glad you were emphatic about the cold butter and water. I would not have worried about it and run amuck. Thanks again.

This is my first time making a Pie Crust and i want to know at what degree should it be cooked in? I see that i have to cook it for 15 to 20 minutes. Thanks for the step by step and the Humor absolutely loving this recipe.

I never use anything else than butter in my recipes. But I absolutely HATE salted butter. I don’t know why it even exists. Why put salt in butter? It is not in there by nature.
I immediately can taste when something sweet is baked with salted butter. And you just need to add more sugar in cakes with that much salt. So it makes no sense to me.

I made this and wow wonderful especially the crust and top–I am going to experiment with the filling and get back to you on that, but I have a big question for you….I am looking to eventually get a food processor and just want to know what size capacity is the one you use for this??? Thank you Dorothy…

Whenever anyone talks food processors I say go BIG. I think mine is a 12-cup. They’re expensive, but I used to have a small 4-cup one and it was horrible for most recipes – nothing would fit. I think 9-12 cup is perfect for most recipes, and it’ll fit the crust perfectly.

The crust tastes delicious but I found this hard to make, especially when you double the recipe. Found it to stick to my rolling pin and counter and really just did not roll out well…at all. Don’t think this is for beginners.

If it seems to stick too much, then you can chill it for a little bit before rolling it. I like to roll it right away to make it easier, because if you chill it too long the dough turns into a brick. But definitely if it’s too sticky, you can chill for about 10-15 minutes, then try again. It all depends on the warmth in your house, if your butter is cold enough, how your processor runs…etc.

Absolutely wonderful recipe! I made this crust for pumpkin pie and received rave reviews. Making it again for thanksgiving, but thinking of using the unsalted butter instead. Thanks for the tutorial and pics!

I’m sorry that happened to you Emily! Can you let me know more about what happened? Did you maybe add too much flour? Was the pie a pre-bake (like a pudding) or a baked pie, like apple? I’ve made this crust hundreds of times with success so I’d like to work out what went wrong for you.

Fantastic! I was going to make a 50/50 pie crust (half butter, half shortening) but when I found out I had no shortening in the house, I searched around the web for an all butter crust. Since I was short of time and they all told me I had to put the dough in the fridge for a few hours, I added the keywords “no wait” and found yours.

Glad I did. I had never made the dough in a food processor before, since I kind of like working with my hands, but I tried it this time and I was amazed at how quick, easy and simple it was. My favorite part was how easy it was to roll out right after I pulled the ball of dough out of the food processor. I’ve always had issues with the cold dough cracking when I tried to roll it out, and this rolled out so easily that my 9 year old daughter could do it without any problems.

One tip that you mention, but that I would reinforce that you should really run that food processor for a good long while before deciding to add any extra water. I was surprised at how long it took, but it eventually balled up just beautifully after that third tablespoon of water.

Not surprisingly, the crust in the finished pie, was delicious. Personally, I’m often more fond of eating the crust with a little filling on it than the rest of the pie – and in our house, everything is better with butter. This crust was just one more positive example. If we ever have less than 2 pounds of butter in the fridge, my wife starts to get nervous 😉

My one question is, does the dough actually need to be refrigerated at all? Is anything gained by putting the crust-filled pie plate it in the fridge before filling it? Would the pie suffer at all if you had the filling ready and just put it directly into the crust right after putting the crust in the pie plate, and then popping it right in the oven? We did exactly what you suggested, put the crust in the fridge, while we made the filling (apple), and it came out great – but is it necessary?

I’m glad you enjoy it; I too prefer the crust to the filling! I always chill the crust before making the filling because it’s warm from rolling and touching it and there is more of a chance it’ll darken faster and/or melt off, especially since it’s all butter. I need to update the recipe, but I recently did a one crust filled pie and it melted down the pie plate the first time I tried it because it wasn’t cold enough. So the colder the better!

Hi Dorothy! I’ve made this crust a few times with success! I want to make the carrot cake pie for Easter but want to make the dough on the Friday before. Is this possible? How would you recommend I do this? Thank you!

I have made a lot of crusts but your method is the best, the food processor is great for pie crusts and pierogi dough(for any one who is interested in pierogi)-Polish filled dumpling. I am in total agreement with all your opinions, especially using salted butter and rolling out the dough before it is chilled, I never had luck with chilled dough or beating it several times with a rolling pin, that never helped. I am 65 years young and bake a lot for a big family so I want to Thank You from the bottom of my heart for sharing your information.

Am new to making crusts and am intrigued by this recipe. One question though – I want to make an apple pie so need two crusts. For the top one, does it still need to be chilled? Could I just put it rolled out, on pizza pan, stick it in the fridge then put it on top? Thanks so much for your help.

Hi Dorothy,
I recently saw this post and am looking forward to making this crust, particularly because it does not use shortening. I would like to use it for a pecan pie, but I have a few questions. 1: For pecan pie, do I still need to poke holes in the crust before adding the filling? 2: Some pecan pie recipes state to partially pre-bake the crust before adding the filling. Would that be necessary with this crust for a pecan pie? Thank you!

Hi Janelle! I make this crust with pecan pie all the time, so it will definitely work. As for poking holes in it, I guess it depends on the recipe you’re using. My pecan pie recipe doesn’t pre-bake the crust, it cooks it at a higher temp (450) for 10 minutes, then lowers it to 350 for the rest of the baking. This crust recipe is multipurpose, so you can use it with any recipe. You shouldn’t need to prebake the crust (this is from joy of baking: “Some recipes do call for pre-baking the crust and you can do that, but I find this step can be eliminated if you simply bake the pie in the lower third of the oven. You will, however, need to watch for over browning on the edges of the crust, and if this starts to happen, just cover the edges with foil.”)

i am going to try your butter crust now, but I was wondering if you ever tried substituting white or apple cider vinegar for the water? I have heard about this alot recently… Supposedly, using vinegar makes the crust flakier, and more tender.

i will try adding vinegar another time! I’ve also heard of using alcohol, since the alcohol evaporates… I don’t like to experiment for guests, especially for holidays, lol, but I just made your butter crust and it turned out perfect!! I’m a fan! I made regular pumpkin pies, but will try your frozen pumpkin meringue recipe in the near future!

This recipe is definitely a keeper! It was many years if not decades since I made a pie crust, but this Thanksgiving I was ‘forced’ to make a pie. I refused to use a recipe calling for shortening and I had no lard, plus the crust needed to be both kosher and halal so lard was out anyway.

I did a quick search, found your recipe and a NYTs recipe. I made both and yours was far superior to the much touted NYTs recipe. Yes, it is a must to keep everything cold. I put the food processor bowl, rolling pin, rolling mat, everything in the freezer for an hour before making pie crust.

I also use a Ziploc bag of ice cubes to chill the countertop when I roll out pastry. Anyway, thanks for the recipe.

I made this crust exactly as the recipe stated and it was hard as a rock and disgusting!! My pecan pie was good after scraping it off the crust! Thanks but no thanks! I WILL NOT be using this recipe again! Id rather buy pre-made crust from the grocery store.

My daughter and I made a chicken pot pie for dinner and we used this recipe. It was both of our first time making pie crust. Very easy recipe and the directions were helpful. It was a huge hit. We will definitely be using this recipe again!!